


Wonderful Journey

by Cat_Moon



Category: Moonlight (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Not Canon Compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-30
Updated: 2019-06-30
Packaged: 2020-05-31 09:12:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19422946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cat_Moon/pseuds/Cat_Moon
Summary: What if Mick and Beth hadn't gotten together at the end of the series?  Finding their way back to each other after Josh died takes time, and it isn't so easy.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Speculation written before the end of the series. Takes place in the future, after “Mortal Cure” and ignores episodes after that one. How an imaginary 2nd season of ML might end like, if they'd never gotten together and there had been another season.

_We were strangers starting out on a journey never dreamed what we’d have to go through._ _Now here we are; I’m suddenly standing at the beginning with you…_ _Life is a road and I wanna keep going_ _Love is a river I wanna keep flowing_ _Life is a road, now and forever wonderful journey_ _In the end I wanna be standing at the beginning with you_

\--“At the Beginning,.” Anastasia Soundtrack

It was hard for Beth to believe a year had gone by. One year of amazing thrill rides and unbearable tragedies. Of laughter and tears, smiles and fears. Her life had changed, and _she_ had changed more in a year than in the previous ten before it.

Nine months since Josh’s death. It had also been a death knoll of sorts for the three months of insanity that had preceded it, and things quieted down somewhat after that. She wasn’t sure if she was relieved or disappointed, but supposed that level of craziness would be hard to sustain.

She’d tried dating a few times, mostly spurred on by well meaning friends. When you’ve had two incredible, heroic men in your life, the nice, mundane ones didn’t stand a chance of measuring up. So she’d taken to an odd, monk-like existence not unlike the one Mick had lived for some twenty three years now. Her friends felt sorry for her, but she could only try to make them understand that being alone was okay; a woman needed to be happy with her own company, or she wasn’t going to be happy in the company of a man, either. Their sympathy wasn’t necessary. She’d had the rare gift of having two wonderful men who loved more than life (yes, Mick was in love with her; she’d finally bought a clue and stopped acting like a dumb blond, but they’d never directly talked about it).

Besides, they didn’t know she had Mick. The one, solid, unchanging presence in her life. The two of them had developed the habit of having long talks, on his couch or hers, late into the night. Her confidante. His.

Mick’s temporary cure had long worn off. He still hadn’t given up on the hope of someday finding a permanent one. It was what he existed for now, like he’d once existed for her, giving it that same quiet patience. There had been a few leads, one or two tantalizing carrots dangled before him, but it still remained as elusive and mysterious as Coraline.

If Beth felt wise beyond her years after just the past twelve months, how did it feel to live for hundreds of years? Funny how, in the privacy of her own mind, she always came back to that. And no, she hadn’t tried the B.C. again either but it was still there, just in case she ever needed it. Just like Mick.

It’s not like she spent a lot of time brooding over stuff, she was no Mick St. John, and her work kept her busy as always. Just that special days deserved special recognition. She didn’t even really have many regrets when all was said and done. Sometimes… alone at night, she’d feel regret that she hadn’t had the chance to know Mick as a lover while he’d been temporarily human, but it hadn’t been appropriate. Josh was still fresh in the ground; it would have been disrespectful and wrong. She’d done the right thing. They both had.

XXX

Almost before Beth had finished knocking on the door, Mick opened it. He was unsurprised to see her.

“Hey,” he said, motioning her inside.

“Hey,” she returned, handing him his present. A bottle of single malt. “You remember what today is?”

Mick graced her with a slight smile. “The day I’ll never forget if I live to be four hundred,” he admitted.

Beth still hated those kinds of thoughts. _If_. Mick was eighty five, had lived a full long life by human standards, there was no special right to expect more. It should have been enough, but even if he did live to be four hundred she suspected the mere thought of something happening to him would still clench her gut. If she wasn’t already dust to the earth herself, like Josh.

Ironic. Here she was a mortal obsessed with immortality and he a vampire who longed to be mortal. As if dying was some wonderful gift he’d missed out on.

Speaking of gifts, he was opening his, sliding the bottle out of the paper wrap. “Will you join me this time?”

“That’s why I’m here.”

For her anniversary with Josh, he’d cooked a chicken for her, for a dinner party she’d run out on to spend time in the morgue. They’re be no dinner for _this_ anniversary, just her and Mick and a bottle of single malt.

Beth made herself at home on the couch while Mick fetched glasses and opened the bottle. Would he sit in the chair tonight or join her on the couch? That seemed to be one of the major questions of her life, lately. He sat beside her on the couch, his choice more often than not these days.

Funny how you measure progress when time is eternity.

“Have you heard anything from Coraline lately?” Beth asked. Their own special version of pleasantries: how’s it going? Read any good books lately?

“Not since Vienna,” Mick answered, pouring the liquor into the glasses, handing one to her.

 _Tramp gets around_ , was what she thought. What she said was, “I keep telling you, the way to find her is to start being happy. She’ll come out of the woodwork so fast it’ll give you whiplash.”

“Thought about it,” Mick quipped, gazing casually into the amber liquid in his glass. “Decided I couldn’t give all this wonderful misery up.”

He’d been one of the well-meaning friends to try and fix her up. Stunned to the point of speechlessness and rage, she hadn’t spoken to him for two weeks.

He’d never tried that again.

What were they to each other? Beth didn’t think a category existed that fit them. Where would they be in another year? Ten? Twenty? Still in this holding pattern, on his couch?

Their connection was stronger than ever now, nothing seemed able to stop that, not even tragedy. She wasn’t even surprised when he seemed to read her mind these days. He started speaking again, as if the seeming unrelated words were a part of the conversation. They always had talked without words, communicated in a nonverbal language – but still, somehow, fell prey to miscommunication.

“I heard about this vampire once, who was in love with a human woman. For years he loved her from afar, never daring to cross the line because he was a monster. One night, don’t know why that night out of all the ones before, he decided to take the risk.”

“What happened?”

“He lost control and drained her. Killed her.”

“So he didn’t turn her. He let her die,” Beth commented. Her response was unemotional. Old news.

“I should have been dead on my wedding night,” Mick said by way of answer.

“I’m just as glad you’re _not_ ,” she replied. “Isn’t that enough?”

She’d once, foolishly, childishly believed he’d do anything for her, that he could deny her nothing she asked. Then Coraline came back. Josh died. She grew up. But somehow, somewhere deep down, she still wanted the same things.

She’d been enough for Josh. He was willing to give up his beliefs, justice, his professional ethics for _her_. And she hadn’t even wanted it. Maybe this was her punishment then. Mick couldn’t even give up his misery for her.

“I believe we forgot our toast,” he said, holding up his glass toward her.

“Can’t have that,” she answered, placing hers next to it. There was a lot she could have said, so many unspoken but important things left abandoned. “To… to good friends,” was all she said.

“To friendship,” Mick echoed, touching her glass with hers. Lightly, barely touching, yet a matched set.

Like them.

**end** (epilogue alt/ending follows)


	2. Alternate ending

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alternate ending to the story.

The silence lengthened after the lame attempt at a toast. Mick stared into his glass and Beth stared at Mick. How could you know someone so well, yet at the same time feel like you didn’t know them at all?

“Do you have any regrets?” he asked her finally. Sometimes, they did talk about some of the important things.

“Sure, everybody does, don’t they?” she evaded, thinking of that period of time when he’d been human and she’d been stupid.

“Sometimes they aren’t what you expect them to be,” he mused almost as if to himself. “And you wonder if you’d still have regrets even if you had done things differently.”

“I guess you can’t go back and re-do them,” she murmured quietly, daringly.

For a long time silence reigned. Then Mick picked up his head and looked at her. “Why not?” He had a smile on his face, and she couldn’t help wonder if he’d gone mad.

“You have a time machine around here you never told me about?”

He shook his head, and stood, holding out his hand for her. “Better. Come with me.”

_Anywhere_ , she thought, but merely let him pull her up without comment.

XXX

At some point she figured out where they were headed, but the terror of hope kept her lips glued shut. To talk might break the spell. She had no idea what Mick planned; it could be some stupid little inadequate gesture… or it could be something she dared not even think about.

The fountain looked the same as it had a year ago this night, the night she had finally been face to face with her guardian angel again. They got out of his car, which was parked in the exact same spot. Mick took her hand and led her away from the Mercedes a bit, looking around as if figuring out the spot they’d been standing in. Everything had to be the same. Would it also be different?

When they were finally standing where Mick wanted them he broke the silence. “Ask me if you know me.”

She still remembered vividly. Trying to keep her heart from pounding and her breath steady, she spoke those fateful words. “You look _so_ familiar – do I know you?”

_You tell me._

“Yes,” Mick responded. “As a matter of fact, you do. I’m the man who saved you when you were four. See, I’m a vampire, it was my wife and sire who kidnapped you. I’m _so_ sorry about that, for what you had to go through. But I’ve been watching over you these past twenty two years, just to be sure you were safe.”

In the pause that followed, she dared to improvise. “You never showed yourself before. Why now?”

Mick smiled almost shyly, glancing down at the ground before back to her. “A bunch of reasons. I’ve been watching your reports on Buzzwire. You’re a damn good reporter. And you’ve grown into a beautiful woman. I felt…compelled to talk to you. To be near you, to have you _see_ me… I know it’s probably a dangerous idea, but I couldn’t help myself.”

“My journalism teacher used to tell me to always follow my first instincts. These things usually have a reason.”

“I don’t know if I could do that, follow. I’ve spent decades fighting my instincts.”

“Why don’t you give it a try, just once?” she suggested. Casually. As if her future didn’t depend on the outcome. “For the girl you stayed in L.A. twenty two years for.”

He stepped closer, almost touching. “I’d do _anything_ for her,” he whispered. A vow, a promise.

“Prove it,” she whispered, daring to ask.

She held her breath, watching as his hand rose as if in slow motion. It came to rest on her cheek. Gently, it drew her in closer. Until finally, Mick’s lips covered hers and she could finally breathe.

_Now here we stand unafraid of the future…_

_In the end I want to be standing at the beginning_

_With you._

**The end**

1/29/08


End file.
